Nebula Awards Showcase 2008 (31 page)

 

A
s representative of the fiction that won him the 2007 Grand Master Award, James Gunn has selected his novelette “The Listeners.” This work served as the opening chapter in his later novel of the same name, a book that was praised by Paul Shuck, president of the SETI League thusly: “
The Listeners
has done more for SETI [the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence] than anything else ever published.”

Jim Gunn explains the genesis of “The Listeners”:

 

 

A
fter a decade when there never had been a day when I wasn’t working on some story or novel, I accepted a position as the first administrative assistant to the chancellor for university relations at the University of Kansas. Those were the turbulent 1960s, and between learning my job and trying to explain student unrest to the various university publics, I had no time for writing.
The Joy Makers, The Immortals,
and
Future Imperfect
were published between 1961 and 1964, but they had been written in the 1950s.

By the middle of the 1960s I was feeling serious withdrawal symptoms, and I resolved to take the month’s paid vacation that I was due. I prepared for that month—August after the end of the summer session and before the beginning of the fall semester—for months ahead so that when the time came I wouldn’t have to think or do research; I could sit down and write. Beginning in 1966, I wrote the second and third novellas that completed
The Burning
(and published them in
If
and
Galaxy),
the second chapter of what later became
Kampus,
and the novelette I called “The Listeners.”

“The Listeners” was inspired by Walter Sullivan’s
We Are Not Alone.
Sullivan was the long-time science editor of the
New York Times.
He had attended a seminal conference of scientists in Washington, DC, along with many of the people who were being attracted to the idea of listening for messages from the stars—what now is called SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence—including Frank Drake and Carl Sagan. His book described the fascination people have displayed over the centuries about the possibility of life on other worlds, and various proposals for communicating with aliens. The availability of radio telescopes had led to recent discussions among such scientists as Guiseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison about the possibility of picking up signals from space, and Cocconi had written a letter to Sir Bernard Lovell proposing that some time on the Jodrell Bank radio telescope be devoted to a search for signals from space.

Sullivan’s book was fascinating, and included a good deal of material that later found its way into my novel, but what stimulated my writer’s instinct was the concept of a project that might have to be pursued for a century without results. What kind of need would produce that kind of dedication, I pondered, and what kind of people would it enlist—and have to enlist if it were to continue? I wrote “The Listeners,” which in the novel is the chapter called “Robert MacDonald.” My then literary agent thought it was overwritten for its audience, had too many foreign-language quotations, and anyway, he wrote, I should make my hero a young man fighting against the tyranny of tired old men. Another agent didn’t care for it enough to take me on as a client, but when
Galaxy
announced that it was going back to monthly publication (and, I realized, would need more material) I sent it to Fred Pohl and he wrote back saying that he’d be happy to publish it if I’d include translations of the foreign-language quotes. The following year Donald Wollheim included it in his
World’s Best Science Fiction
anthology.

In the next few years (I was working on other projects as well), I wrote five more chapters and saw all but the final chapter published in
Fantasy & Science Fiction
and
Galaxy.
Meanwhile Charles Scribner’s Sons had decided to develop a science fiction line under editor Norbert Slepyan, and one of the novels he signed up was
The Listeners.
He asked me once if I was going to add anything to the six chapters and I said I was planning on broadening the perspective to include some of the materials that were being gathered by the computer to aid in its recognition (and translation) of alien communications, as well as the beginnings of artificial intelligence (observant readers may watch it happen).

The novel was published in hardcover in 1972 as “a novel” (not a science fiction novel). The same year it became a selection of the Science Fiction Book Club. The following year it was published by Signet Books and a decade later it was reprinted by Del Rey Books. It has been translated into Italian, German, Polish, Japanese, and Chinese. Three decades have passed since the novel was published, and more than a fourth of the century-long project. SETI projects on both coasts are still hard at work, trying to pick up messages from the stars, and they continue—without positive results. If the novel has any claims to vision, its insight may be found in its evaluation of human desire and persistence in the face of continuing discouragement. But we are approaching the period when the novel begins, and maybe the signal we all have been awaiting—that we are not alone—will soon be received.

If it is, if our search is rewarded, maybe
The Listeners
will have played a part in it, and the book that started in 1966 in a hot August sleeping porch, in a college town in eastern Kansas, will have made a difference. After all, one of the SETI project directors told me recently that
The Listeners
had done more to turn people on to the search than any other book. My thanks go to Walter Sullivan’s
We Are Not Alone.
I hope the title is right.

 

T
he voices babbled.

MacDonald heard them and knew that there was meaning in them, that they were trying to communicate and that he could understand them and respond to them if he could only concentrate on what they were saying, but he couldn’t bring himself to make the effort.

“Back behind everything, lurking like a silent shadow behind the closed door, is the question we can never answer except positively: Is there anybody there?”

That was Bob Adams, eternally the devil’s advocate, looking querulously at the others around the conference table. His round face was sweating, although the mahogany-paneled room was cool.

Saunders puffed hard on his pipe. “But that’s true of all science. The image of the scientist eliminating all negative possibilities is ridiculous. Can’t be done. So he goes ahead on faith and statistical probability.”

MacDonald watched the smoke rise above Saunders’ head in clouds and wisps until it wavered in the draft from the air duct, thinned out, disappeared. He could not see it, but the odor reached his nostrils. It was an aromatic blend easily distinguishable from the flatter smell of the cigarettes being smoked by Adams and some of the others.

Wasn’t this their task? MacDonald wondered. To detect the thin smoke of life that drifts through the universe, to separate one trace from another, molecule by molecule, and then force them to reverse their entropic paths into their ordered and meaningful original form.

All the king’s horses, and all the king’s men…Life itself is impossible, he thought, but men exist by reversing entropy.

Down the long table cluttered with overflowing ash trays and coffee cups and doodled scratch pads, Olsen said, “We always knew it would be a long search. Not years but centuries. The computers must have sufficient data, and that means bits of information approximating the number of molecules in the universe. Let’s not chicken out now.”

 

“If seven maids with seven mops

Swept it for half a year,

Do you suppose,” the Walrus said,

“That they could get it clear?”

 

“…Ridiculous,” someone was saying, and then Adams broke in. “It’s easy for you to talk about centuries when you’ve been here only three years. Wait until you’ve been at it for ten years, like I have. Or Mac here who has been on the Project for twenty years and head of it for fifteen.”

“What’s the use of arguing about something we can’t know anything about?” Sonnenborn said reasonably. “We have to base our position on probabilities. Shklovskii and Sagan estimated that there are more than one thousand million habitable planets in our galaxy alone. Von Hoerner estimated that one in three million have advanced societies in orbit around them; Sagan said one in one hundred thousand. Either way it’s good odds that there’s somebody there—three hundred or ten thousand in our segment of the universe. Our job is to listen in the right place or in the right way or understand what we hear.”

Adams turned to MacDonald. “What do you say, Mac?”

“I say these basic discussions are good for us,” MacDonald said mildly, “and we need to keep reminding ourselves what it is we’re doing, or we’ll get swallowed in a quicksand of data. I also say that it’s time now to get down to the business at hand—what observations do we make tonight and the rest of the week before our next staff meeting?”

Saunders began, “I think we should make a methodical sweep of the entire galactic lens, listening on all wavelengths—”

“We’ve done that a hundred times,” said Sonnenborn.

“Not with my new filter—”

“Tau Ceti still is the most likely,” said Olsen. “Let’s really give it a hearing—”

MacDonald heard Adams grumbling, half to himself, “If there is anybody, and they are trying to communicate, some amateur is going to pick it up on his ham set, decipher it on his James Bond coderule, and leave us sitting here on one hundred million dollars of equipment with egg all over our faces—”

“And don’t forget,” MacDonald said, “tomorrow is Saturday night and Maria and I will be expecting you all at our place at eight for the customary beer and bull. Those who have more to say can save it for then.”

MacDonald did not feel as jovial as he tried to sound. He did not know whether he could stand another Saturday night session of drink and discussion and dissension about the Project. This was one of his low periods when everything seemed to pile up on top of him, and he could not get out from under, or tell anybody how he felt. No matter how he felt, the Saturday nights were good for the morale of the others.

 

Pues no es posible que esté continuo el arco armado ni la condición y flaqueza humana se pueda sustenar sin alguna lícita recreación.

 

Within the Project, morale was always a problem. Besides, it was good for Maria. She did not get out enough. She needed to see people. And then…

And then maybe Adams was right. Maybe nobody was there. Maybe nobody was sending signals because there was nobody to send signals. Maybe man was alone in the universe. Alone with God. Or alone with himself, whichever was worse.

Maybe all the money was being wasted, and the effort, and the preparation—all the intelligence and education and ideas being drained away into an endlessly empty cavern.

 

Habe nun, ach! Philosophie,

Juristerei und Medizin,

Und leider auch Theologie

Durchaus studiert, mit heissem Bemühn.

Da steh’ ich nun, ich armer Tor!

Und bin so klug als wie zuvor;

Heisse Magister, heisse Doktor gar,

Und ziehe schon an die zehen Jahr

Herauf, herab und quer und krumm

Meine Schüler an der Nase herum—

Und sehe, dass wir nichts wissen können

 

Poor fool. Why me? MacDonald thought. Could not some other lead them better, not by the nose but by his real wisdom? Perhaps all he was good for was the Saturday night parties. Perhaps it was time for a change.

He shook himself. It was the endless waiting that wore him down, the waiting for something that did not happen, and the Congressional hearings were coming up again. What could he say that he had not said before? How could he justify a project that already had gone on for nearly fifty years without results and might go on for centuries more?

“Gentlemen,” he said briskly, “to our listening posts.”

By the time he had settled himself at his disordered desk, Lily was standing beside him.

“Here’s last night’s computer analysis,” she said, putting down in front of him a thin folder. “Reynolds says there’s nothing there, but you always want to see it anyway. Here’s the transcription of last year’s Congressional hearings.” A thick binder went on top of the folder. “The correspondence and the actual appropriation measure are in another file if you want them.”

MacDonald shook his head.

“There’s a form letter from NASA establishing the ground rules for this year’s budget and a personal letter from Ted Wartinian saying that conditions are really tight and some cuts look inevitable. In fact, he says there’s a possibility the Project might be scrubbed.”

Lily glanced at him. “Not a chance,” MacDonald said confidently.

“There’s a few applications for employment. Not as many as we used to get. The letters from school children I answered myself. And there’s the usual nut letters from people who’ve been receiving messages from outer space, and from one who’s had a ride in a UFO. That’s what he called it—not a saucer or anything. A feature writer wants to interview you and some others for an article on the Project. I think he’s with us. And another one who sounds as if he wants to do an exposé.”

MacDonald listened patiently. Lily was a wonder. She could handle everything in the office as well as he could. In fact, things might run smoother if he were not around to take up her time.

“They’ve both sent some questions for you to answer. And Joe wants to talk to you.”

“Joe?”

“One of the janitors.”

“What does he want?” They couldn’t afford to lose a janitor. Good janitors were harder to find than astronomers, harder even than electronicians.

“He says he has to talk to you, but I’ve heard from some of the lunchroom staff that he’s been complaining about getting messages on his—on his—”

“Yes?”

“On his false teeth.”

MacDonald sighed. “Pacify him somehow, will you, Lily? If I talk to him we might lose a janitor.”

“I’ll do my best. And Mrs. MacDonald called. Said it wasn’t important and you needn’t call back.”

“Call her,” MacDonald said. “And, Lily—you’re coming to the party tomorrow night, aren’t you?”

“What would I be doing at a party with all the brains?”

“We want you to come. Maria asked particularly. It isn’t all shop talk, you know. And there are never enough women. You might strike it off with one of the young bachelors.”

“At my age, Mr. MacDonald? You’re just trying to get rid of me.”

“Never.”

“I’ll get Mrs. MacDonald.” Lily turned at the door. “I’ll think about the party.”

MacDonald shuffled through the papers. Down at the bottom was the only one he was interested in—the computer analysis of last night’s listening. But he kept it there, on the bottom, as a reward for going through the others. Ted was really worried. Move over, Ted. And then the writers. He supposed he would have to work them in somehow. At least it was part of the fallout to locating the Project in Puerto Rico. Nobody just dropped in. And the questions. Two of them caught his attention.

How did you come to be named Project Director? That was the friendly one. What are your qualifications to be Director? That was the other. How would he answer them? Could he answer them at all?

Finally he reached the computer analysis, and it was just like those for the rest of the week, and the week before that, and the months and the years before that. No significant correlations. Noise. There were a few peaks of reception—at the twenty-one-centimeter line, for instance—but these were merely concentrated noise. Radiating clouds of hydrogen, as the Little Ear functioned like an ordinary radio telescope.

At least the Project showed some results. It was feeding star survey data tapes into the international pool. Fallout. Of a process that had no other product except negatives.

Maybe the equipment wasn’t sensitive enough. Maybe. They could beef it up some more. At least it might be a successful ploy with the Committee, some progress to present, if only in the hardware. You don’t stand still. You spend more money or they cut you back—or off.

Note: Saunders—plans to increase sensitivity.

Maybe the equipment wasn’t discriminating enough. But they had used up a generation of ingenuity canceling out background noise, and in its occasional checks the Big Ear indicated that they were doing adequately on terrestrial noise, at least.

Note: Adams—new discrimination gimmick.

Maybe the computer wasn’t recognizing a signal when it had one fed into it. Perhaps it wasn’t sophisticated enough to perceive certain subtle relationships…. And yet sophisticated codes had been broken in seconds. And the Project was asking it to distinguish only where a signal existed, whether the reception was random noise or had some element of the unrandom. At this level it wasn’t even being asked to note the influence of consciousness.

Note: ask computer—is it missing something? Ridiculous? Ask Olsen.

Maybe they shouldn’t be searching the radio spectrum at all. Maybe radio was a peculiarity of man’s civilization. Maybe others had never had it or had passed it by and now had more sophisticated means of communication. Lasers, for instance. Telepathy, or what might pass for it with man. Maybe gamma rays, as Morrison suggested years before Ozma.

Well, maybe. But if it were so, somebody else would have to listen for those. He had neither the equipment nor the background nor the working lifetime left to tackle something new.

And maybe Adams was right.

He buzzed Lily. “Have you reached Mrs. MacDonald?”

“The telephone hasn’t answered—”

Unreasoned panic…

“—Oh, here she is now, Mr. MacDonald, Mrs. MacDonald.”

“Hello, darling, I was alarmed when you didn’t answer.”

That had been foolish, he thought, and even more foolish to mention it.

Her voice was sleepy. “I must have been dozing.” Even drowsy, it was an exciting voice, gentle, a little husky, that speeded MacDonald’s pulse. “What did you want?”

“You called me,” MacDonald said.

“Did I? I’ve forgotten.”

“Glad you’re resting. You didn’t sleep well last night.”

“I took some pills.”

“How many?”

“Just the two you left out.”

“Good girl. I’ll see you in a couple of hours. Go back to sleep. Sorry I woke you.”

But her voice wasn’t sleepy anymore. “You won’t have to go back tonight, will you? We’ll have the evening together?”

“We’ll see,” he promised.

But he knew he would have to return.

MacDonald paused outside the long, low concrete building that housed the offices and laboratories and computers. It was twilight. The sun had descended below the green hills, but orange and purpling wisps of cirrus trailed down the western sky.

Between MacDonald and the sky was a giant dish held aloft by skeletal metal fingers—held high as if to catch the stardust that drifted down at night from the Milky Way.

 

Go and catch a falling star,

Get with child a mandrake root,

Tell me where all past years are,

Or who cleft the Devil’s foot;

Teach me to hear mermaids singing,

Or to keep off envy’s stinging,

And find

What wind

Serves to advance an honest mind.